Previously: Cache of devices capable of crashing cell network is found in NYC - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45345514 - Sept 2025 (283 comments)
There is so much to address in this post but I want to look at just this part: "One of the reasons we know this story is bogus is because of the New York Times story which cites anonymous officials, “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation”. That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles. It’s the “Washington Game” of “official leaks”, disseminating propaganda without being held accountable."
It is not accurate to claim "that's not a thing". Citing anonymous sources is a long established practice (in particular when it comes to law enforcement activities or potentially sensitive political reporting). The NYT has formal editorial standards around the identity of anonymous sources that require editors to assess the justification for applying it. It doesn't mean the information is reliable, that's where an editorial eye comes into play, but it does fall under the category of normal journalistic practice.
Next the "Washington Game": there’s a grain of truth here, but it is overstated. Yes, leaks can be part of a strategic move by politicians and it can be a source of exploitation by political operators but to equate all anonymous sourcing with propaganda is misleading. Plenty of such reporting has resulted in significant truths being revealed and powerful people being held accountable (Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, Abu Ghraib). Responsible reporting involves weighing a source's motivations as well as corroborating and contextualizing that information as accurately and truthfully as possible.
The author's dismissiveness oversimplifies (or mischaracterizes, if I am being less generous) the reason and function of anonymity here. They overstate the issue with propaganda and anonymous sources. Accurate in the sense that anonymity can enable propaganda (it has happened), it is inaccurate in its absolutism.
I feel like this sort of tone, with the absolutism, the attempt to reduce the complexity and nuance of reporting to the point where it can be dismissed is pretty typical of what passes for commentary in today's blog/tweet/commentary culture but it really plays more into the hands of those that would sow confusion and mistrust than it does into that of the truth and accuracy.
Citing anonymous sources is not established ETHICAL practice, it's corruption of the system. The roll of the journalist is to get sources on the record, not let them evade accountability by hiding behind anonymity. Anonymity is something that should be RARELY granted, not routinely granted as some sort of "long established practice".
What is the justification for anonymity here? The anonymous source is oath bound not to reveal secrets, so what is so important here that justifies them violating their oath to comment on an ongoing investigation? That's what we are talking about, if they are not allowed to comment on an ongoing investigation, then it's a gross violation of their duty to do so. The journalist needs to question their motives for doing so.
We all know the answer here, that they actually aren't violating their duty. They aren't revealing some big secret like Watergate. They are instead doing an "official leak", avoiding accountability by hiding behind anonymity. Moreover, what the anonymous source reveals isn't any real facts here, but just more spin.
We can easily identify the fact that it's propaganda here by such comments about the SIM farms being within 35 miles of the UN. It's 35 miles to all of Manhattan. It's an absurd statement on its face.
The article you cited does not agree with your assertions. It specifically tells you how and when to evaluate the use of an anonymous source.
If you don't ever use anonymous sources, many fewer people will talk to you. Being on the record about something that will get you fired, will get you fired - and then no one talks to journalists.
What separates actual ethical journalists from the rest is doing everything the article you cited suggests - validating information with alternative sources, understanding motives, etc.
One of the more sober assessments in this entire thread, and closely aligned with how I experienced it. It's not nothing to stress the fact that it was pretty far away from the UN and that it's not obvious why a case of SIM cards would enable surveillance (seems more like it would anonymize an individual bad actor). But a large part of this is completely unsubstantiated speculation that people are nodding along with, which, in my opinion, is showing a breakdown in the ability to comprehend logical or evidence-based arguments.
> But a large part of this is completely unsubstantiated speculation that people are nodding along with, which, in my opinion, is showing a breakdown in the ability to comprehend logical or evidence-based arguments.
This is how I feel about the NYT article. So much doesn't add up, and the more I read and investigate, the flakier it becomes.
Odd to have officials speaking anonymously about an investigation while the Secret Service is putting out press releases about it.
Judith Miller taught me that either the NYT is totally corrupt, or easily misled. It is completely reasonable to place almost zero weight on stories they report on "national security" from nothing but anonymous sources from the intelligence community.
No journalistic institution is perfect. And, there are indeed journalists who cut corners, tell misleading narratives, or are too credulous.
However, there have been important and sometimes shocking stories that have been told thanks to reporting based on trustworthy, anonymous sources. The Pentagon Papers is a textbook example.
>Plenty of such reporting has resulted in significant truths being revealed and powerful people being held accountable (Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, Abu Ghraib).
And what, pray tell, is the major scandal in this case? The source isn't alleging any impropriety or illegal activity. Anonymous sources are for stories which are being suppressed or lied about, not for investigations which have not yet publicly been announced due to pending litigation. If there's no obvious motive for why the source would want to be anonymous then all you're reporting on is rumor and gossip.
> The NYT has formal editorial standards around the identity of anonymous sources that require editors to assess the justification for applying it.
They should also have editorial standards that judge the quality of the information and then decide whether to even print it or not. In this case, without a second source, it probably should /not/ have been printed.
> What we consider before using anonymous sources:
> How do they know the information?
> What’s their motivation for telling us?
> Have they proved reliable in the past?
> Can we corroborate the information they provide?
> Because using anonymous sources puts great strain on our most valuable asset: our readers’ trust, the reporter and at least one editor is required to know the identity of the source. A senior newsroom editor must also approve the use of the information the source provides.
How do you know they didn't have multiple confirmations from different anonymous sources? Generally this is the case with high quality journalism (souce: dated a journalist).
To me, the article is saying that an "ongoing investigation" is not a valid reason to grant anonymity, not that there are no valid reasons to grant anonymity.
Who is being protected from whom by granting this source anonymity? With your three examples it's clear, but not as much in this case.
Officials who are not supposed to talk about ongoing investigations, and might get fired if they do, but can't help themselves so they do it anyway under cover of "anonymity."
And honestly, probably everyone in a position to know, does know who the "anonymous" source is, but it's just enough plausible deniability that everyone gets away with it. They get to push their narrative but also pretend they are following the rules that are supposed to protect various parties in the process.
Meanwhile if I were on a grand jury and blabbing to the press every evening about an investigation, I could get in real trouble.
If that was the model that society adopted, the fine article would be among the set of data being censored. Robert Graham seems to be competent in his field but he lacks the pedigree that the NYT wants to cite. Even worse, he disagrees with those who the NYT turn to as matter experts: https://substack.com/@cybersect/p-174413355
Author kind of made me trust him about as much as I trust the SS on not exaggerating when he spoke as if only he is an authority because he has declared himself a hacker. I think I might have trusted him more if he said "I used to run one of these SIM farms back in the day"
> this sort of tone, with the absolutism, the attempt to reduce the complexity and nuance of reporting to the point where it can be dismissed is pretty typical of what passes for commentary in today's blog/tweet/commentary culture but it really plays more into the hands of those that would sow confusion
I think this is the mechanism of action that will lead to america's downfall.
algorithmic content has connected dopaminergic interest to extremism while simultaneously welcoming influence from both agents of neutral chaos and malicious destruction.
i am currently watching a schism unfold in my immediate family over the death of charlie kirk. if we literally cannot discern the difference between charlie and a fascist/nazi/racist because complexity and nuance are dimensions of information that do not exist, then we are destined for civil war.
you cannot understand vaccine safety, israel v palestine, russia v ukraine, or literally anything else by scrolling instagram reels. stop having an opinion and uninstall the poison.
In my extended family there's some government employees an auditor and someone in defense, and listening to them try to explain why the 'failed audit' fox news had their father ranting about as a reason everyone deserved to be fired by DOGE at the time and he was "loving every minute" was more nuanced and not good evidence for the conclusion he'd been fed was difficult.
Even in simple jobs I've worked there's always been something armchair experts don't consider that makes their quick fix "just do this" or "how hard can it be to do X" ignorant and irrelevant. But he was so enamored of Elon and "saving us money" he couldn't even fathom maybe his kids who are smart and have been in the industry for sometime might know or understand something he doesn't.
Later I asked him "What audit are you talking about?" And he said "Who cares, I know they failed and that's all I need to know." The brazen ignorance mixed with outright callousness masquerading as righteousness is not good.
It's possible the author is wrong, but one should consider the author's history and demonstrated technical proficiency, e.g., the programs he has written. Take a look at his code. He has been around much longer than "blogs" and "Substack"
IMHO, he is also proficient at explaining complex topics involving computers. If others have differing opinions, feel free to share
Anyone know where can we see parent commenter's code or something that demonstrates their knowledge of computers, computer networks or particular knowledge of "SIM farms"
IIUC, the blog post is not claiming there is no such thing as speaking with the press on the condition of anonymity, it is claiming that requesting anonymity for disclosing the existence (cf. the details) of an investigation into routine criminal activity is reasonable cause for skepticism. The blog post then explains why the author believes the "SIM farm" is a routine criminal enterprise, not something more
One does not have to be an "expert in political propaganda", nor rely on one, to question out of common sense why anonymity is needed to disclose the discovery of a "SIM farm"
> Anyone know where can we see parent commenter's code or something that demonstrates their knowledge of computers, computer networks or particular knowledge of "SIM farms"
The parent commenter literally never questions the post's technical conclusions or assumptions. Why are you acting like they did?
The commenter appears to be trying to make a point about how the post addresses sources, tone, and confidentiality.
I think there is a bit of disconnect between people knowing what is possible and what people fear might be doable.
It's entirely possible that there are good non technical reasons for believing who was behind this while being technically incorrect about what it was that they intended to do.
Some of the more fanciful notions might be unlikely. Some of the evidence is only relevent in context. The distance from the UN is not terribly compelling on its own, the significance of the area of potential impact containing the UN is only because of the timing.
A state action might be for what might seem to be quite mundane reasons. One possible scenario would be if a nation feared an action suddenly called for by other states and they just want to cause a disrupting delay to give them time to twist some arms. Disruptions to buy time like this are relatively common in politics, the unusual aspect would be taking a technical approach.
"Yes, leaks can be part of a strategic move by politicians and it can be a source of exploitation by political operators but to equate all anonymous sourcing with propaganda is misleading."
AFAICT, the blog author never equated _all_ anonymous sourcing with propaganda. The blog post is not titled "The NYT is bogus"
Instead, the blog post discusses a specific story that relates to a specific "SIM farm"
It questions why _in this particular instance_, relating to a "SIM farm", the source needed to remain anonymous
But that is not the only reason the author thinks the SIM farm story is bogus/hype
Based on technical knowledge/experience, the author opines the "SIM farm" was set up for common criminal activity, not as a system purposefully designed to overload a cell tower
It is the later opinion, not the one about the NYT, that is interesting to me in terms of evaluating this "news" hence I am curious what similar experience the parent commenter may have, if any
After so many years of being exposed to it on HN and the developer blogs submitted to HN, I have become accustomed to dismissive tone and black-and-white, all-or-nothing, pick-a-side thinking from software developers, i.e., what the parent calls "absolutism", absence of "nuance", etc. Probably not a day goes by without some HN commenter trying to dismiss "mainstream media", making some nonsensical complaint about news reporting that they dislike
Silicon Valley is now intermediating the publication of these worthless opinions for profit: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and so on
But, like I suggested, if one reads the blog author's source code and discussions of programming and cryptography, then one might be more willing to tolerate some personal opinions about the NYT. Ideally, programmers would only comment online about programming, and not, for example, about journalism, but that's not what happens in reality
You are attacking a straw man to make your arguments which makes me question your motivations.
Nowhere did the substack author say that cinting anonymous sources is not a thing, which your wording is implying. They say that citing anonymous sources to discuss an ongoing investigation is not a valid reason.
Let's look at the guidelines for ethical journalism and they quote the NYTimes guidelines: anonymous sources... “should be used only for information that we believe is newsworthy and credible, and that we are not able to report any other way.”
"... journalists should use anonymous sources only when essential and to give readers as much information as possible about the anonymous source’s credentials"
Came here to post this. Haven't we learned many times in the last 5 years that, on average, "The Literal New York Times" is a better and more reliable source than "Some Guy on Substack"?
Claiming that anonymous sources inside an agency/administration is "not a thing" clearly betrays the fact that this person knows nothing about actual journalism. Heck even a casual NYT reader will know that they cite anonymous sources within the administration all the time! Just look at all the reporting about the Musk/Rubio dust-ups!
They do quote anonymous sources all the time, and, more often than not, those anonymous sources are leaking to the media to push their narrative, ie propaganda. The NYT is very clearly the puppet of washington insiders.
The “literal New York Times” doesn't exist anymore. This is not investigative journalism. This is just acting as the mouth piece for some anonymous government official.
News is a good source for facts. If they say the sky is blue, I would have no reason to doubt them. But if they say the sky is turning from blue to pink, and we should all be worried because this might be a sign of the end times, I wouldn't get up from my chair.
I found the focus on the source being anonymous odd as well. I think the correct lesson is that substacks have just as much propensity towards being propaganda as the nyt does.
> Haven't we learned many times in the last 5 years that, on average, "The Literal New York Times" is a better and more reliable source than "Some Guy on Substack"?
Uh, my recent experience is that "Some guy on Substack" is a significantly more reliable source than "The Literal New York Times".
Gel-Mann Amnesia affect applies here: every time I've seen mainstream media cover a subject that I have personal experience or expertise with, it's been shockingly inaccurate. This includes the NYTimes. It includes random guys on Substack too, but I've found that random guys on Substack when speaking about their area of expertise are actually pretty accurate. It's left to the reader to determine whether some random guy on Substack is actually speaking to an area of their expertise, but other comments here have attested that the author actually knows what he's talking about when it comes to SIM farms.
Both can be bad. The NYT absolutely publishes some slop from time to time, and I'm inclined to believe this is one such occasion. But this Substack essay isn't a measured correction and has its own mistruths and exaggerations. In other words, there's a middle ground between total credulity and solipsistic nihilism.
Maybe on average, but we've also learned there are too many times when "The Literal New York Times" either repeats propaganda for money, or literally just makes shit up.
There is a lawyer (Alec Karakatsanis) who has been writing about police driven propaganda for years. His recent book "Copaganda" is fantastic. He carefully breaks down how major papers (NYT is chief among them) create stories that fit a narrative by using very one-sided sources. Like an article on crime written in bad faith where the only people quotes are police, police consultants, and ex-police.
It's a really good book, I wish more people were aware of it and read it.
Didn't read the book but I think it's more insidious than what you wrote. The journalists don't think they're writing these stories to amplify the police narrative (they think they're unbiased). They just don't have the judgement (or will?) to look beyond the initial narrative which is police-driven.
In the end if a journalist can get their story out faster by leaning on a few 'trusted sources' and then move onto the next article, most of them will and their managers will encourage it. Maybe you'll get a more in depth story if it makes it to On The Media a week or two later but that's basically all we have at this point which is very sad.
> The journalists don't think they're writing these stories to amplify the police narrative (they think they're unbiased). They just don't have the judgement (or will?) to look beyond the initial narrative which is police-driven.
No, they know what they are doing and you can tell they know what they are doing by the careful way language is used differently for similar facts when the police or other favored entities are involved vs. other entities in similar factual circumstances (particularly, the use of constructions which separates responsibility for an adverse result from the actor, which is overwhelmingly used in US media when police are the actors—and also, when organs of the Israeli state are—but not for most other violent actors.) This is frequently described as “the exonerative mood” (or, sometimes, “the exonerative tense”, though it is not really a verb tense.)
Carefully calibrated, highly-selective use of (often, quite awkward) linguistic constructs does not happen unconsciously, it is a deliberate, knowing choice.
It's more perverse than that. Journalists know if they don't toe the party line, their access to voluntary information from law enforcement will be cut off entirely. Hard to write an article when everyone refuses to talk to you.
I thought insidious means sinister/evil, but what you point out just shows that we as a society don't value news enough to pay for anything more than the 1-4 hours of time invested per news article.
Police propaganda is serious problem. But this seems like the least appropriate thing to dismiss as "just police propaganda". What's bad about police propaganda is it perpetuates a certain politics by maintain atmosphere of fear as well as pushing certain stereotypes of ethnic groups. But when the police are exaggerating the terrorist potential of actual organized criminals, things seem much muddier. I think people should concerned about organized scammers - their victims are usually the poor, notably. It's true their terrorist potential is overstated but only because they are profit-oriented but it's not like their other activities should be ignored.
Eyewitnesses. Often the police and the news narrative are very different than eyewitness accounts. Even if everyone knows what happened, it's completely obvious, the news and police still obfuscate.
I felt slightly...hm...confused when reading this. When I see something in the news, to the degree that I trust the source, I see it only as a statement of fact, and unless I trust the commentator, I ignore the comment. I only expect descriptive accuracy from the news. This sometimes requires resources that individuals don't generally have.
When I read a personal blog article articulating a personal opinion, presenting evidence and trying to make a case for their conclusion, I usually apply a different standard. From them, I expect sound reasoning, which often requires a form of independence/neutrality that news organizations don't have.
And let's just say this article is not exactly structured as a sequence of QEDs, so to speak. It doesn't seem like the conclusions follow from the premisses. That's not to say it's wrong, just that if it is right, it would be in part by accident.
The novel information in this article (confirmed by some technical experts on other platforms) is that this kind of SMS scam relay is a well-known sort of enterprise. I wasn’t aware of this, although it doesn’t surprise me. Once you have that context, the rest of the NYT article kind of falls apart by itself.
I wouldn’t say the NYT article falls apart it is just less sensationalistic. Very likely as this substack article suggests that these SIM farms do knock out SMS from time to time because they DDoS the tower. So that part is correct. Nation state ? Ok maybe far fetched. These farms are not out of reach of a normal person who over time purchases the technical pieces. It’s an investment.
Ok, that makes sense. I couldn't quite fish that out of the article (there's a lot more being said that obscures it), but you're right. If this is indeed relatively common (at this scale and/or level of sophistication), then that definitely would make it much more likely that this is a PR stunt. Not completely settled, but much more likely.
Article's subheading is "it's just an ordinary crime". It seem comparable to a situation where you have a gang with a huge weapon cache that gets found and the press says "enough fire power to outgun the police" and someone says "dude, they weren't aiming for the police, just their rivals".
Sure, the press may put a "threat to the nation" spin on things that might be a bit sensational. But the "you're making something out of nothing" claims seem to do the opposite. Criminals with the ability to cause widespread chaos seem worrying even if their may motivation is maintaining their income stream.
It's not complicated. This is a normal sort of criminal enterprise. These rooms filled with SIM boxes are all over the world. The owners of them rent out the service to others -- letting them send 1,000 spam messages for a fee. One of the buyers of the service was indeed using it to threaten a politician. But this represents a tiny fraction (less than 1% of 1% of the SIMs normal use -- which is probably mostly phishing messages and other spam). It is a criminal enterprise and was used as some sort of political threat, but it's probably not set up by Russia or intended for that purpose.
These enterprises might not be setup by Russia directly but they might be setup by Russian criminal organizations which have been very active in the US over the last 20 years. That nobody in the current administration seem to be concerned with criminal organizations outside of some small or remnant groups from Latin America is very telling all on its own. This administration has never named any Russian gangs in official statements, even while they now dominate in some parts of the US.
I think, the more extraordinary the claim is, the more proof is required. And I’m with you, I’d normally be incredibly skeptical of a substack post from an author I’ve never heard of before, who writes as egotistically as this. But there is just no extraordinary claim in this article. Only a very very ordinary claim that should be believable to any person who has ever owned a cell phone:
SIM farms are normal, common things that exist all over the place to allow messages from far-away senders to be sent as if they came from a local number.
> SIM farms are normal, common things that exist all over the place to allow messages from far-away senders to be sent as if they came from a local number.
Meanwhile, many US companies won't let me, the actual legitimate user they're trying to authenticate, use Google Voice, because it's "so dangerous and spoofable, unlike real SIM cards".
Hopefully this helps a little bit in driving that point home.
> And I’m with you, I’d normally be incredibly skeptical of a substack post from an author I’ve never heard of before, who writes as egotistically as this.
It's always funny to see comments like this; because there's always at least 50/50 chance that the article is from someone that is actually prolific, just that the person has a blind-spot for whatever reason.
yeah, like you go on alibaba and can get them right away. i was even thinking about them like 10 years ago when we had to send transactional sms to our customers to get one instead of paying for somebodies sms gateway.
The article for me was weird in the sense that it makes the claim that the purpose was of the farms were not necessarily nefarious in a terror sense, but merely criminal. Even suggesting that they could be legitimate (that was a stretch, sim farms in residential apartments? Please.).
It also makes the point that its purpose wasn’t to disrupt cell service, although these things can and will disrupt cell services.
So from my perspective, the article is strange in the sense that the author seems pretty intent on splitting enough hairs to prove the secret service wrong. For me, I don’t care if they are wrong about its purpose— If this helps decrease spam messages, great. If it means that cell services are now more reliable in that area, great. If it’s something that could be hijacked and used for terroristic purposes and has now been neutralized, great.
I believe the kind of journalism you’re hinting at is practically dead in what many people are referring to when they say “the news.” It’s hard to determine if I agree with your stance though since you didn’t actually define what you meant by news organizations; mind listing a few of your favorite sources of news and trusted commentators? If they’re quite good, it’ll help people find reliable sources of descriptive accuracy!
But a meta point: Most commercial news rooms have become propoganda arms for The Party that churn out low effort AP ticker derivatives, social media gossip, and literal government propaganda from The Party whispered in their ear by an “anonymous source.” The “news rooms” appear devoid of any real journalistic integrity.
I think we are going to see an increasing trend of “true journalists” leaving the legacy news industry to places where they can build direct relationships with their audience, can own their own content distribution channels, and directly monetize those channels. I.E. Substack, YouTube, X, et. al.
> I think we are going to see an increasing trend of “true journalists” leaving the legacy news industry to places where they can build direct relationships with their audience, can own their own content distribution channels, and directly monetize those channels. I.E. Substack, YouTube, X, et. al.
Those independent channels seem far more amenable to "opinion-havers" than "true journalists" (though perhaps the "true journalists" transform into opinion-havers or secondhand-analysts when they change distribution platforms).
> ...churn out low effort AP ticker derivatives, social media gossip, and literal government propaganda from The Party whispered in their ear by an “anonymous source.”
That stuff is cheap. How do you expect someone moving to a place of fewer resources and less security to make a more expensive product?
> The “news rooms” appear devoid of any real journalistic integrity.
This article describes some secret service messaging about busting some basic (possibly?) criminal enterprise, how the NYT amplifies that messaging without question, and names a couple of experts who the author finds questionable (which is the part I'm most unsure about, but honestly I just don't want to have more names to memorize).
After everything the gov't has tried to hype in the last decade (I'm including some things under Biden's term too), and esp. the efforts made in Trump second term, sure seems like it checks out to me.
So maybe you could name one of the conclusions and its premises, and describe how they don't follow. Cause I certainly don't follow what you're on about.
“…which often requires a form of independence/neutrality that news organizations don't have.”
Really? I see a difference between 24h infotainment news and News.
The News I listen to (AM radio) is compacted into fact, point, counterpoint. And that’s it. When it repeats, no more news. I’m old enough to remember this basic News playbook, and it’s not changed on those stations I listen to.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm with you. I just meant more broadly - I think that inevitably, news organizations, as a whole, have more many competing interests - comercial, political, etc. I think that at least some of them at really trying their best to deliver accurate, factual claims. I'm generally less inclined to read opinion pieces, but I certainly get my news from the News, and I have a huge respect for honest journalists. I think they're one of the most under appreciated professions of our age.
I understood them perfectly so I'm not sure what you're talking about. It's a thoughtful high-level overview about the difference between authoritative factual communication and vibes-based speculation. I made a similar point in a thread yesterday about the various disorganized allegations of "fraud" attributed to MrBeast and how they rarely cohere into a clearly articulated harm.
I think scatterbrained, vibes based almost-theories that vaguely imitate real arguments but don't actually have the logical structure, are unfortunately common and important to be able to recognize. This article gets a lot of its rhetorical momentum from simply declaring it's fake and putting "experts" in scare quotes over and over. It claims the article is "bogus" while agreeing that the sim cards are real, were really found, really can crash cell towers, and can hide identities. It also corrects things that no one said (neither the tweet nor the NYT article they link to refer to the cache of sim cards as "phones" yet the substack corrects this phrasing).
The strongest argument makes is about the difference between espionage and cell tower crashing and the achievability of this by non state actors (it would cost "only" $1MM for anyone to do this), but a difference in interpretation is a far cry from the article actually being bogus. And the vagueposting about how quoting "high level experts" proves that the story is fake is so ridiculous I don't even know what to say. Sure, the NYT have preferred sources who probably push preferred narratives, but if you think that's proof of anything you don't know the difference between vibes and arguments.
So I completely understand GPs point and wish more comments were reacting in the same way.
When Bobby tries to convince his friend Jimmy that Charlie is lying, you shouldn't trust him if he says that "I know that Charlie is lying because apples are green".
> One of the reasons we know this story is bogus is because of the New York Times story which cites anonymous officials, “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation”. That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles.
This whole thing reminds me of the 90s when the government would bust some 16 year old hacker kid in his suburban bedroom who was abusing a PBX, and then parade him around like they'd arrested Lex Luthor (the cartoon villain, not the actual hacker) and prevented a global crisis.
"We just arrested this drug pusher. One of our brave officers got a 0.001 milligram piece of fentynal on his sleeve, but fortunately after being rushed to the Emergency Room we were able to save his life.
"The other 0.003 mg were lost while trying to get them in the evidence bag."
Yeah, there are some ridiculous theatrics going on.
> First responders who believe they are overdosing on fentanyl from simply touching it in fact exhibit the exact opposite of the symptoms we would expect. While fentanyl makes you euphoric and slows down your breathing, cops start breathing faster, sweat a lot, and become anxious. “I don’t want to discredit anyone or say they’re faking,” says Dr. Marino. “I do think people are having a true medical emergency when this happens. The symptoms seem most consistent with a panic attack or anxiety or a fear reaction.”
> Some will claim they had to administer naloxone (trade name Narcan), which can reverse an opioid overdose, in order to save their life. But if you are conscious enough to self-administer naloxone, you’re not overdosing on opioids. You would have lost consciousness and barely been breathing.
I forget what originally opened my eyes to the theatrics of a typical perp walk (probably Grisham) - the cops tip off the reporters, the reporters get their content for the nightly news, the cops use the front door of the station rather than using the parking garage entrance like normal. It's a bizarro red carpet event.
Your description can only refer to Kevin Mitnick. They threw the book at him to set an example. I remember being amazed at what a hacker he must have been. Later I read about his crimes and thought "that's all?" RIP Mr. Mitnick.
> That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles. It’s the “Washington Game” of “official leaks”, disseminating propaganda without being held accountable.
Yeah makes a lot of sense when framed like this, the timing of the secret service of all people busting this 'huge' operation was far too suspicious.
>That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles
Are they just making up these "normal journalistic principles"? I see different newspapers publishing quotes anonymously under similar conditions all the time.
> It’s the “Washington Game” of “official leaks”, disseminating propaganda without being held accountable.
In general, you can spot this kind of propaganda by realizing that the anonymous source is actually promoting the government's position and so isn't actually in danger. I.E. they aren't a whistleblower, they have no reason to fear repercussions.
Yes, most newspapers are publishing anonymous quotes from government officials without scrutiny; quotes that are later found to have been completely bogus.
We live in an age of constant memetic warfare and a majority of our content distribution channels have been compromised.
Just in a cursory check into some of the other articles using the phrase, it seems like they're mostly cases where an investigator might encounter retaliation for speaking out. It's hard to imagine that happening for the present example.
That's a long enough phrase to be unique. Journalists often agree to speak to all kinds of sources "on condition of anonymity". Even if you just don't want to be sued by your employer you might not be comfortable being named.
Overall I found the substack author to tell a good story and speak with what seems to be relevant technical experience so I reposted the link that I saw in another hn thread as a separate story, but as other commentors have pointed out it's possible that both he and the original journalist are hyping up conspiracies in both directions (compromised press vs state actor hackers) and actually the truth is often a more boring mid ground (Journalists hyping up stories and shady people doing shady things)
If the objective is to knock out cell towers, just jam them. It's clearly a SIM farm for middle-man communications. It just happened to be close to where the UN were.
Also hard to imagine how this could be used for espionage. Listening in on cell traffic requires defeating security measures in the protocol. Generally something like a 0 day. This might require a single SIM card, but probably not lots of unless there’s something very unusual about the vulnerability that requires lots of valid seeming actors on the network. Plausible I suppose. But “SMS spam” is a vastly more likely explanation than a security hole that can’t be brute forced on the radio.
Paying for residential / mobile proxy[0] traffic for scraping is becoming more common - this is what I always imagined the other end of the mobile part looked like.
Wow, I knew there were residential proxies for sale (for bypassing geofenced VOD content etc.), but I didn't know that was a thing for mobile data yet.
Is it time to stop treating somebody's IP address as an authentication factor yet?
The hardware in the pictures of the NYT article don't resemble what I am familiar with when it comes to mobile data farming, they look like traditional sim equipment for texting.
Cell phone farm devices are a thing. Here's one you can buy on Alibaba.[1]
This is a little more pro looking than the ones seen in New York. It's 20 phones in a 2U rackmount case. Costs $1880, including the phones. Cheap shipping, too.
Lots of variations available. Vertical stack, different brands of Android phones, rackmount, server racks for thousands of phones, software for clicking on ads, training videos. "No code".
Product info:
"only provide box for development or testing use.pls do not use it for illegal"
Description
Package
Each Box purchase includes the hardware (20 Phone motherboard ,USB cable, box power cord, phone motherboard +advanced control management software (15days free,after that $38 a year)
download software from our website (in the video)
Whats is Box Phone Farm ? It is a piece of equipment that removes the phone screen/battery/camera/sim slot, integrates them into a
chassis, and works with click farm software to achieve group control functions. 1 box contains 20 mobile phone motherboards.
Install the click farm software on your computer and you can do batch operations.
Function:
Install the Click Farm software on your PC, and you can operate the device in batches or operate a mobile phone
individually.
Only one person can control 20 mobile phones at the same time, perform the same task, or perform different tasks separately, and easily build a network matrix of thousands of mobile phones.
As long as it is an online project that mobile phone users participate in, they can participate in the control.
The voltage support 110v- 220V, and when running the game all the time, one box only consumes about 100 watts.
Ethernet:
[OTG/LAN] can use USB mode, and can also use the network cable of the router to connect the box.Two connection modes can be switched.
Readit News
It is not accurate to claim "that's not a thing". Citing anonymous sources is a long established practice (in particular when it comes to law enforcement activities or potentially sensitive political reporting). The NYT has formal editorial standards around the identity of anonymous sources that require editors to assess the justification for applying it. It doesn't mean the information is reliable, that's where an editorial eye comes into play, but it does fall under the category of normal journalistic practice.
Next the "Washington Game": there’s a grain of truth here, but it is overstated. Yes, leaks can be part of a strategic move by politicians and it can be a source of exploitation by political operators but to equate all anonymous sourcing with propaganda is misleading. Plenty of such reporting has resulted in significant truths being revealed and powerful people being held accountable (Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, Abu Ghraib). Responsible reporting involves weighing a source's motivations as well as corroborating and contextualizing that information as accurately and truthfully as possible.
The author's dismissiveness oversimplifies (or mischaracterizes, if I am being less generous) the reason and function of anonymity here. They overstate the issue with propaganda and anonymous sources. Accurate in the sense that anonymity can enable propaganda (it has happened), it is inaccurate in its absolutism.
I feel like this sort of tone, with the absolutism, the attempt to reduce the complexity and nuance of reporting to the point where it can be dismissed is pretty typical of what passes for commentary in today's blog/tweet/commentary culture but it really plays more into the hands of those that would sow confusion and mistrust than it does into that of the truth and accuracy.
Citing anonymous sources is not established ETHICAL practice, it's corruption of the system. The roll of the journalist is to get sources on the record, not let them evade accountability by hiding behind anonymity. Anonymity is something that should be RARELY granted, not routinely granted as some sort of "long established practice".
What is the justification for anonymity here? The anonymous source is oath bound not to reveal secrets, so what is so important here that justifies them violating their oath to comment on an ongoing investigation? That's what we are talking about, if they are not allowed to comment on an ongoing investigation, then it's a gross violation of their duty to do so. The journalist needs to question their motives for doing so.
We all know the answer here, that they actually aren't violating their duty. They aren't revealing some big secret like Watergate. They are instead doing an "official leak", avoiding accountability by hiding behind anonymity. Moreover, what the anonymous source reveals isn't any real facts here, but just more spin.
We can easily identify the fact that it's propaganda here by such comments about the SIM farms being within 35 miles of the UN. It's 35 miles to all of Manhattan. It's an absurd statement on its face.
If you don't ever use anonymous sources, many fewer people will talk to you. Being on the record about something that will get you fired, will get you fired - and then no one talks to journalists.
What separates actual ethical journalists from the rest is doing everything the article you cited suggests - validating information with alternative sources, understanding motives, etc.
When you say this, what oaths are you specifically thinking about?
This is how I feel about the NYT article. So much doesn't add up, and the more I read and investigate, the flakier it becomes.
Odd to have officials speaking anonymously about an investigation while the Secret Service is putting out press releases about it.
The NYT article is not sufficiently critical (of something) so it is government propaganda but in other times and places the NYT was not propaganda.
Real stories have real evidence.
However, there have been important and sometimes shocking stories that have been told thanks to reporting based on trustworthy, anonymous sources. The Pentagon Papers is a textbook example.
Deleted Comment
And what, pray tell, is the major scandal in this case? The source isn't alleging any impropriety or illegal activity. Anonymous sources are for stories which are being suppressed or lied about, not for investigations which have not yet publicly been announced due to pending litigation. If there's no obvious motive for why the source would want to be anonymous then all you're reporting on is rumor and gossip.
They should also have editorial standards that judge the quality of the information and then decide whether to even print it or not. In this case, without a second source, it probably should /not/ have been printed.
> What we consider before using anonymous sources:
> How do they know the information?
> What’s their motivation for telling us?
> Have they proved reliable in the past?
> Can we corroborate the information they provide?
> Because using anonymous sources puts great strain on our most valuable asset: our readers’ trust, the reporter and at least one editor is required to know the identity of the source. A senior newsroom editor must also approve the use of the information the source provides.
Is there a particular change you’re proposing?
Who is being protected from whom by granting this source anonymity? With your three examples it's clear, but not as much in this case.
And honestly, probably everyone in a position to know, does know who the "anonymous" source is, but it's just enough plausible deniability that everyone gets away with it. They get to push their narrative but also pretend they are following the rules that are supposed to protect various parties in the process.
Meanwhile if I were on a grand jury and blabbing to the press every evening about an investigation, I could get in real trouble.
Anyone on TikTok has gone down the phone farm rabbit hole. Some of us stay. This is teen level tech. There's phone farm ASMR.
Better question is why this is the best take down of a 'bogus' story on Hacker News?
This comment really should not be top or what Hacker News discusses as a side comment.
If that was the model that society adopted, the fine article would be among the set of data being censored. Robert Graham seems to be competent in his field but he lacks the pedigree that the NYT wants to cite. Even worse, he disagrees with those who the NYT turn to as matter experts: https://substack.com/@cybersect/p-174413355
I think this is the mechanism of action that will lead to america's downfall.
algorithmic content has connected dopaminergic interest to extremism while simultaneously welcoming influence from both agents of neutral chaos and malicious destruction.
i am currently watching a schism unfold in my immediate family over the death of charlie kirk. if we literally cannot discern the difference between charlie and a fascist/nazi/racist because complexity and nuance are dimensions of information that do not exist, then we are destined for civil war.
you cannot understand vaccine safety, israel v palestine, russia v ukraine, or literally anything else by scrolling instagram reels. stop having an opinion and uninstall the poison.
Even in simple jobs I've worked there's always been something armchair experts don't consider that makes their quick fix "just do this" or "how hard can it be to do X" ignorant and irrelevant. But he was so enamored of Elon and "saving us money" he couldn't even fathom maybe his kids who are smart and have been in the industry for sometime might know or understand something he doesn't.
Later I asked him "What audit are you talking about?" And he said "Who cares, I know they failed and that's all I need to know." The brazen ignorance mixed with outright callousness masquerading as righteousness is not good.
It's quite annoying
IMHO, he is also proficient at explaining complex topics involving computers. If others have differing opinions, feel free to share
Anyone know where can we see parent commenter's code or something that demonstrates their knowledge of computers, computer networks or particular knowledge of "SIM farms"
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-anonymous-sources...
IIUC, the blog post is not claiming there is no such thing as speaking with the press on the condition of anonymity, it is claiming that requesting anonymity for disclosing the existence (cf. the details) of an investigation into routine criminal activity is reasonable cause for skepticism. The blog post then explains why the author believes the "SIM farm" is a routine criminal enterprise, not something more
One does not have to be an "expert in political propaganda", nor rely on one, to question out of common sense why anonymity is needed to disclose the discovery of a "SIM farm"
This is authority bias. Being a great programmer does not make one an expert in political propaganda, the inner workings of government, or the media.
The parent commenter literally never questions the post's technical conclusions or assumptions. Why are you acting like they did?
The commenter appears to be trying to make a point about how the post addresses sources, tone, and confidentiality.
It's entirely possible that there are good non technical reasons for believing who was behind this while being technically incorrect about what it was that they intended to do.
Some of the more fanciful notions might be unlikely. Some of the evidence is only relevent in context. The distance from the UN is not terribly compelling on its own, the significance of the area of potential impact containing the UN is only because of the timing.
A state action might be for what might seem to be quite mundane reasons. One possible scenario would be if a nation feared an action suddenly called for by other states and they just want to cause a disrupting delay to give them time to twist some arms. Disruptions to buy time like this are relatively common in politics, the unusual aspect would be taking a technical approach.
AFAICT, the blog author never equated _all_ anonymous sourcing with propaganda. The blog post is not titled "The NYT is bogus"
Instead, the blog post discusses a specific story that relates to a specific "SIM farm"
It questions why _in this particular instance_, relating to a "SIM farm", the source needed to remain anonymous
But that is not the only reason the author thinks the SIM farm story is bogus/hype
Based on technical knowledge/experience, the author opines the "SIM farm" was set up for common criminal activity, not as a system purposefully designed to overload a cell tower
It is the later opinion, not the one about the NYT, that is interesting to me in terms of evaluating this "news" hence I am curious what similar experience the parent commenter may have, if any
After so many years of being exposed to it on HN and the developer blogs submitted to HN, I have become accustomed to dismissive tone and black-and-white, all-or-nothing, pick-a-side thinking from software developers, i.e., what the parent calls "absolutism", absence of "nuance", etc. Probably not a day goes by without some HN commenter trying to dismiss "mainstream media", making some nonsensical complaint about news reporting that they dislike
Silicon Valley is now intermediating the publication of these worthless opinions for profit: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and so on
But, like I suggested, if one reads the blog author's source code and discussions of programming and cryptography, then one might be more willing to tolerate some personal opinions about the NYT. Ideally, programmers would only comment online about programming, and not, for example, about journalism, but that's not what happens in reality
His claim is that they busted a common criminal sim farm, with little or no national security implications. You don't address that all.
Nowhere did the substack author say that cinting anonymous sources is not a thing, which your wording is implying. They say that citing anonymous sources to discuss an ongoing investigation is not a valid reason.
Let's look at the guidelines for ethical journalism and they quote the NYTimes guidelines: anonymous sources... “should be used only for information that we believe is newsworthy and credible, and that we are not able to report any other way.”
"... journalists should use anonymous sources only when essential and to give readers as much information as possible about the anonymous source’s credentials"
https://ethicsandjournalism.org/resources/best-practices/bes...
So the question is were these anonymous sources essential to the story? Have they given enough information about the sources credentials?
Claiming that anonymous sources inside an agency/administration is "not a thing" clearly betrays the fact that this person knows nothing about actual journalism. Heck even a casual NYT reader will know that they cite anonymous sources within the administration all the time! Just look at all the reporting about the Musk/Rubio dust-ups!
The “literal New York Times” doesn't exist anymore. This is not investigative journalism. This is just acting as the mouth piece for some anonymous government official.
I found the focus on the source being anonymous odd as well. I think the correct lesson is that substacks have just as much propensity towards being propaganda as the nyt does.
Humm... No?
Gel-Mann Amnesia affect applies here: every time I've seen mainstream media cover a subject that I have personal experience or expertise with, it's been shockingly inaccurate. This includes the NYTimes. It includes random guys on Substack too, but I've found that random guys on Substack when speaking about their area of expertise are actually pretty accurate. It's left to the reader to determine whether some random guy on Substack is actually speaking to an area of their expertise, but other comments here have attested that the author actually knows what he's talking about when it comes to SIM farms.
It's a really good book, I wish more people were aware of it and read it.
In the end if a journalist can get their story out faster by leaning on a few 'trusted sources' and then move onto the next article, most of them will and their managers will encourage it. Maybe you'll get a more in depth story if it makes it to On The Media a week or two later but that's basically all we have at this point which is very sad.
No, they know what they are doing and you can tell they know what they are doing by the careful way language is used differently for similar facts when the police or other favored entities are involved vs. other entities in similar factual circumstances (particularly, the use of constructions which separates responsibility for an adverse result from the actor, which is overwhelmingly used in US media when police are the actors—and also, when organs of the Israeli state are—but not for most other violent actors.) This is frequently described as “the exonerative mood” (or, sometimes, “the exonerative tense”, though it is not really a verb tense.)
Carefully calibrated, highly-selective use of (often, quite awkward) linguistic constructs does not happen unconsciously, it is a deliberate, knowing choice.
when Barbara Walters was interviewing Fidel Castro , what do you think was going on from the perspective of the United States?
They're not all such prestigious examples, but the point stands.
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
When I read a personal blog article articulating a personal opinion, presenting evidence and trying to make a case for their conclusion, I usually apply a different standard. From them, I expect sound reasoning, which often requires a form of independence/neutrality that news organizations don't have.
And let's just say this article is not exactly structured as a sequence of QEDs, so to speak. It doesn't seem like the conclusions follow from the premisses. That's not to say it's wrong, just that if it is right, it would be in part by accident.
Sure, the press may put a "threat to the nation" spin on things that might be a bit sensational. But the "you're making something out of nothing" claims seem to do the opposite. Criminals with the ability to cause widespread chaos seem worrying even if their may motivation is maintaining their income stream.
SIM farms are normal, common things that exist all over the place to allow messages from far-away senders to be sent as if they came from a local number.
That’s all the author is asking us to believe.
Meanwhile, many US companies won't let me, the actual legitimate user they're trying to authenticate, use Google Voice, because it's "so dangerous and spoofable, unlike real SIM cards".
Hopefully this helps a little bit in driving that point home.
It's always funny to see comments like this; because there's always at least 50/50 chance that the article is from someone that is actually prolific, just that the person has a blind-spot for whatever reason.
That is, also, the case here.
https://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/faf448fd0d906a15/prod...
It also makes the point that its purpose wasn’t to disrupt cell service, although these things can and will disrupt cell services.
So from my perspective, the article is strange in the sense that the author seems pretty intent on splitting enough hairs to prove the secret service wrong. For me, I don’t care if they are wrong about its purpose— If this helps decrease spam messages, great. If it means that cell services are now more reliable in that area, great. If it’s something that could be hijacked and used for terroristic purposes and has now been neutralized, great.
But a meta point: Most commercial news rooms have become propoganda arms for The Party that churn out low effort AP ticker derivatives, social media gossip, and literal government propaganda from The Party whispered in their ear by an “anonymous source.” The “news rooms” appear devoid of any real journalistic integrity.
I think we are going to see an increasing trend of “true journalists” leaving the legacy news industry to places where they can build direct relationships with their audience, can own their own content distribution channels, and directly monetize those channels. I.E. Substack, YouTube, X, et. al.
Those independent channels seem far more amenable to "opinion-havers" than "true journalists" (though perhaps the "true journalists" transform into opinion-havers or secondhand-analysts when they change distribution platforms).
> ...churn out low effort AP ticker derivatives, social media gossip, and literal government propaganda from The Party whispered in their ear by an “anonymous source.”
That stuff is cheap. How do you expect someone moving to a place of fewer resources and less security to make a more expensive product?
> The “news rooms” appear devoid of any real journalistic integrity.
I think you're seeing the result of budget cuts.
After everything the gov't has tried to hype in the last decade (I'm including some things under Biden's term too), and esp. the efforts made in Trump second term, sure seems like it checks out to me.
So maybe you could name one of the conclusions and its premises, and describe how they don't follow. Cause I certainly don't follow what you're on about.
Really? I see a difference between 24h infotainment news and News.
The News I listen to (AM radio) is compacted into fact, point, counterpoint. And that’s it. When it repeats, no more news. I’m old enough to remember this basic News playbook, and it’s not changed on those stations I listen to.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer...
Please don't post shallow dismissals...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I think scatterbrained, vibes based almost-theories that vaguely imitate real arguments but don't actually have the logical structure, are unfortunately common and important to be able to recognize. This article gets a lot of its rhetorical momentum from simply declaring it's fake and putting "experts" in scare quotes over and over. It claims the article is "bogus" while agreeing that the sim cards are real, were really found, really can crash cell towers, and can hide identities. It also corrects things that no one said (neither the tweet nor the NYT article they link to refer to the cache of sim cards as "phones" yet the substack corrects this phrasing).
The strongest argument makes is about the difference between espionage and cell tower crashing and the achievability of this by non state actors (it would cost "only" $1MM for anyone to do this), but a difference in interpretation is a far cry from the article actually being bogus. And the vagueposting about how quoting "high level experts" proves that the story is fake is so ridiculous I don't even know what to say. Sure, the NYT have preferred sources who probably push preferred narratives, but if you think that's proof of anything you don't know the difference between vibes and arguments.
So I completely understand GPs point and wish more comments were reacting in the same way.
When Bobby tries to convince his friend Jimmy that Charlie is lying, you shouldn't trust him if he says that "I know that Charlie is lying because apples are green".
> One of the reasons we know this story is bogus is because of the New York Times story which cites anonymous officials, “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation”. That’s not a thing, that’s not a valid reason to grant anonymity under normal journalistic principles.
"The other 0.003 mg were lost while trying to get them in the evidence bag."
> First responders who believe they are overdosing on fentanyl from simply touching it in fact exhibit the exact opposite of the symptoms we would expect. While fentanyl makes you euphoric and slows down your breathing, cops start breathing faster, sweat a lot, and become anxious. “I don’t want to discredit anyone or say they’re faking,” says Dr. Marino. “I do think people are having a true medical emergency when this happens. The symptoms seem most consistent with a panic attack or anxiety or a fear reaction.”
> Some will claim they had to administer naloxone (trade name Narcan), which can reverse an opioid overdose, in order to save their life. But if you are conscious enough to self-administer naloxone, you’re not overdosing on opioids. You would have lost consciousness and barely been breathing.
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medical-critical-thinking/...
If you want to read more a good place to start is The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling.
Yeah makes a lot of sense when framed like this, the timing of the secret service of all people busting this 'huge' operation was far too suspicious.
Are they just making up these "normal journalistic principles"? I see different newspapers publishing quotes anonymously under similar conditions all the time.
> It’s the “Washington Game” of “official leaks”, disseminating propaganda without being held accountable.
In general, you can spot this kind of propaganda by realizing that the anonymous source is actually promoting the government's position and so isn't actually in danger. I.E. they aren't a whistleblower, they have no reason to fear repercussions.
Yes, most newspapers are publishing anonymous quotes from government officials without scrutiny; quotes that are later found to have been completely bogus.
We live in an age of constant memetic warfare and a majority of our content distribution channels have been compromised.
`site:nytimes.com “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation”` has no earlier results
Other outlets have used “speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation” before though.
Overall I found the substack author to tell a good story and speak with what seems to be relevant technical experience so I reposted the link that I saw in another hn thread as a separate story, but as other commentors have pointed out it's possible that both he and the original journalist are hyping up conspiracies in both directions (compromised press vs state actor hackers) and actually the truth is often a more boring mid ground (Journalists hyping up stories and shady people doing shady things)
Edit:ascii emoji fail
I cannot conceive of a reason why that would occur
https://xkcd.com/1138/
[0] https://oxylabs.io/products/mobile-proxies
Is it time to stop treating somebody's IP address as an authentication factor yet?
Lots of variations available. Vertical stack, different brands of Android phones, rackmount, server racks for thousands of phones, software for clicking on ads, training videos. "No code".
Product info:
"only provide box for development or testing use.pls do not use it for illegal"
Description
Package
Each Box purchase includes the hardware (20 Phone motherboard ,USB cable, box power cord, phone motherboard +advanced control management software (15days free,after that $38 a year) download software from our website (in the video)
Whats is Box Phone Farm ? It is a piece of equipment that removes the phone screen/battery/camera/sim slot, integrates them into a chassis, and works with click farm software to achieve group control functions. 1 box contains 20 mobile phone motherboards. Install the click farm software on your computer and you can do batch operations.
Function:
Install the Click Farm software on your PC, and you can operate the device in batches or operate a mobile phone individually. Only one person can control 20 mobile phones at the same time, perform the same task, or perform different tasks separately, and easily build a network matrix of thousands of mobile phones. As long as it is an online project that mobile phone users participate in, they can participate in the control. The voltage support 110v- 220V, and when running the game all the time, one box only consumes about 100 watts.
Ethernet:
[OTG/LAN] can use USB mode, and can also use the network cable of the router to connect the box.Two connection modes can be switched.
[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/S22-Server-Rack-S8-Bo...
Actual phone farms are for when you need actual phones, such as to run apps.
Sophisticated actors likely roll their own virtualization (w/ masking) solutions.
I'm puzzled about how the phones get their RF signals in and out when that tightly packed in metal boxes, though.